


The Process Of Healing

by InesStarkDowney



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Healing, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InesStarkDowney/pseuds/InesStarkDowney
Summary: Tony is hurt, he is half the person he was, he's abandoned, he's angry, but through all those emotions that try to get the best of him, Tony still loves the Avengers. That's why that, even from far away, he tries to let them know he still cares. Of course, Steve, in the midst of it all, is a different case, things are far more blurry with him, but... but things are getting good. Tony's healing. Even if alone.Maybe not that alone.T'challa is there, as the months go by, and T'challa is also with the rest of the team and perhaps, Tony isn't the only one that cares. T'challa makes sure he sees that.(Or how I completely ignored the major issues post civil war and just focused on the Avengers getting sort of together because a part of me still loves them as a team, sue me, I needed happiness)





	1. After All

**Author's Note:**

> This is just fluff. I don't mention any big problems within the team because I wanted to focus on the lighter stuff and happier things. This is about healing, but not the healing we really need in the MCU cause that is... almost impossible. Too much dark stuff going around. Either way, I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> (I honestly just wrote this to make myself a little happier)

_Healing does not mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives._

Tony remembered the birthdays after. _After it_.

He remembered his own birthday. 46 years old and Tony was stuck, closed off in Steve's old office, looking at his drawings just not to stare at the box in front of him. It was addressed to him. From Steve.

In perfect handwriting, it said _Tony Stark_ and Tony would know that handwriting anywhere. Steve. A month and that came in, on his birthday.

Tony had to open and when he opened it, saw the burner phone fall off and the letter, shit. Forget the drawings, even though beautiful, that was more important. Tony basically ate the letter, memorized every line from reading it so many times, had the phone's shape printed into his hand, from holding on to it too tightly.

After Tony's birthday, he wasn't left just alone; he was left with mixed feelings of saudade, sadness and an unbelievable anger. Anger for Steve, for Bucky, for the whole team that left.

It would all simmer down though, some way or another, some of that anger turned just into longing, other into understanding... But Steve's... Steve was still a mess.

Steve's birthday came around. Fireworks exploded in the sky, Tony and Vision and Rhodey sat in the garden and celebrated alone, but with tiny smiles on their faces, Tony held on to the phone to the last minute of that night.

 **_23:59_ ** _\- Happy Birthday._

Not a single word more. Not one single glance at the phone. Tony threw it back into the drawer he kept it in his bedroom. He ignored the incoming messages that night. The phone buzzed until late, a constant noise in Tony's mind. Something was gutting him. But Tony stayed still, the phone kept still, and Tony did not open any messages.

Until he kept moving it: To his office, to the living room, to the kitchen, to the trash.

_"I think it's better in the office. It's just a phone for emergencies after all, Rhodeybear"_

_"I mean, we spend a lot of time in the living room, watching movies, cuddling... It's best there. I can hear it there."_

_"It's in the kitchen where all random stuff is. Remember when Barton kept putting clips in the drawer? It was so random. Thank God that doesn't... happen anymore."_

_"It's over, Rhodey. It's in the trash where it belongs. He can come crawling back to me, if he wants. I won't call him and he better not call me."_

The phone always ended in Tony's hand or back pocket. There was something comfortable about it. Maybe the fact that Steve was just on the other side and Tony could call any time and just... Talk. Maybe throw a big fuck you in his face and hang up, as well. It had its perks. Tony felt comfortable with it.

Either way, Tony never actually called or texted beyond that fourth of July with no parties and no white noise from the team. Silence. To Steve, only.

Sam's birthday came around and Tony felt like he needed to get him something.

Through T'challa, he gave him a similar phone to the own Steve gave him. As well as a letter. Tony was not that creative when it came to showing affection or forgiveness or anything really. It was a Tony move, and apparently a Steve move.

The letter was small, a few lines and casual.

 _Rhodey has a phone like this in his back pocket. Call him. Text him. Talk to him. Don't hang up on the guilt. After everything, you should at least take this advice from me_ _._

_T. S._

T'challa never told him what Sam’s reaction was. But Tony somehow knew it. Sometimes, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, for certain reasons, and in the living room, he'd hear Rhodey speak to Sam. It was a regular session and something was lift off of Tony's shoulders. How he came to still feel like he needed to take care of the people that left him was a mystery. Or he tried to make it one, by not thinking of it the way it was: he still loved them.

Nat's Birthday came two months later and Tony was standing in front of a locker in Manhattan’s train station with a box in his hands. The box was silver, with metallic silver dots in them and a beautiful pink bow around it. Inside there was a pair of brand new pointe shoes.

They had come directly from Russia, the best Tony could find.

It was hard to open the locker and leave it there. Some sort of anger still lived inside Tony, like a shadow over his heart, telling him this was a gift for the disappearing act. Tony knew better, of course.

Tony left the box there with the shared memories he had with Natasha and how she deserved this, no matter what. The question was: would she take the gift or leave it there, as a message about their relationship?

Tony told himself he would wait a few days, but by the next day, he was opening the locker to find it empty. Tony put on his sunglasses and pretended he wasn't crying from relief and happiness.

He still had a friend somewhere in the world.

Christmas and New Year came around, Tony was already used to the mostly empty compound, and something in him told him that Steve was also used to being without him, without hearing something from him. But still, still, he typed a quick message.

_"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year"._

This time Steve seemed to know better than to text or call back. Maybe he threw the phone out, like Tony did so many times before. Maybe he didn't care anymore. It didn't really matter or so Tony tried to believe in.

But it stung that Steve had given up on him like that.

Ignoring the pain, with a quick call to T'challa, he asked him:

"Could you tell the team that New York misses them?"

"Of course... Even Captain Rogers?"

Tony shrugged his shoulders, late to realize that the King could not see it and make a decision for Tony. So with the bitter taste of the silence Steve left him with, Tony answered:

"No."

Tony spent the next minutes wondering what the look on Steve's face must have looked like, but soon he realized... He couldn't really recall what Steve's face looked like beside angry and bloody.

Maybe that stung more than the silence treatment.

January came and so did Barton's birthday. This time, Tony did not know what to give him. Clint was so random that it was this hard to give him something.

He didn't come up with anything till the very day came, when he was in Queens, with Peter, going for a cup of coffee while Peter was in his lunch break. Tony heard Peter ramble about last week's jerk face that had dared to disturb Queens with his villainous shenanigans, when they passed by a kid's store and in the store's showcase was a stuffed unicorn that reminded Tony of Clint's pajamas.

10 minutes later he had it in a purple box with a purple bow around it. Tony couldn't help but smile even after Peter bothered him for minutes about who it was for.

It took a while for Tony to see T'challa again, unfortunately, and after giving the present to the King, Tony asked:

"Could you tell him I didn't forget about him? I just had to find the perfect gift."

T'challa smiled, a very kind smile, one that no longer had pity in it like in the beginning, after it all happened, and nodded.

"I'll make sure Mr. Barton knows about it. I am pretty sure he was sulking for the last few days every time I walked in and didn't bring anything with me."

Tony laughed wholeheartedly for the first time in a long time, and it was as if the team was just away for a bit, on a mission. When the laugh stopped, though, so did that feeling disappear. It was no mission; it was a choice and consequences.

After that encounter with T'challa, Tony got to thinking of the next birthday: Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. Steve's best friend. The Winter Soldier. The man that kille- No. No. Tony had come to terms with that long ago. Tony had come to understand Bucky, the boy that lost his life long ago and is probably still unsure of how to live again, not the machine hydra bred and commanded to kill dozens of people, including Tony's parents.

It was that understanding that got Tony to work day and night on a prosthetic arm, one to fit Bucky, one that would help him in battle to fight, not to kill, one that would allow him to be like anyone else with four limbs.

He made it so it would be the best damn prosthetic the world had seen. And when March came around and T'challa was there again, Tony was nervous. Bucky was a “no no” subject around T'challa, for obvious reasons. It had been a settlement. Not only for Bucky's sake, but for Tony's sake at the beginning. And no one would have thought Tony would heal in that aspect, but he did.

(Kudos to Rhodey's precious help.)

Tony sat in the same table as T'challa, looking at his own hands, rubbing them, playing with his fingers mindlessly, when T'challa looked up and stared right into Tony, through Tony.

"Tony, spit out whatever it is that you want to say."

"Huh?" Looking a little dizzy, but rapidly regaining his posture, Tony moved on: "Do you know what March 10 means?"

"No... Should it mean something to me?"

"Uh, no, not to you. But since you are around Steve- uh, Rogers, maybe you'd know it."

"Ah... Bucky's Birthday."

"Yes! I know you don't want us to talk about him, which is totally understandable and you don't have to tell me anything about him, what's going on with our favourite soldier, but, but..."

"Yes, Tony?" Now T'challa looked serious, ready to say no to whatever Tony was about to ask him. It just made Tony spit it out faster.

"Since January I have been working on a prosthetic arm for him, one pretty much like Rhodey's legs, but you know... Suitable for Bucky. It is the best I can build and, let's be honest, that means it's the best goddamn prosthetic arm in the world."

Tony smiled a much failed cocky smile while T'challa looked totally out of this world till his expression soothed down and that same little smile from before showed up.

"I shall make sure then that he gets the best prosthetic arm in the world. Are there any instructions to assemble it?"

"It will actually have to be put together in surgery so that the arm can be connected to his nerves and he actually gets a really feeling of having an arm and not the absence of it, that only looking at it makes him know that he has one."

"Very well... I'm sure Mr. Barnes will be very pleased with his arm. And so will Captain Rogers."

Tony laughed bitterly into his coffee mug and when he looked at the King, his brown eyes still held the same pain regarding Steve. The prolonged silence by Steve did not help it.

"Please, he will think it's some trap to kill James and will just hate me more."

"I don't think you realize how much the captain takes you into consideration. It is not my place to talk on his behalf and what has happened these last months with him, but every time he talks of you... There's always fondness in him. He thinks you are a good person. Which, you are. What happened between the two of you does not define you at all."

With a lump in his throat, Tony nodded and quickly said his goodbye to T'challa and threw an excuse to run to his workshop where he sat, looking at the burner phone and wondering if it shouldn't be him to tear down the silence between the two of them.

Tony never called though. He put the phone down and moved on to the one of his new projects with Peter's suits. His reason though... Not important.

And with that, one year had passed by. One year with a burner phone in his back pocket, with the compound half empty, definitely empty, with Rhodey hardly walking without wincing in pain, with Peter next to him most of the days, and some new meaning to Tony's life: moving on, or trying to.

But always loving them from far away.


	2. Not Just You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe I wrote something multi-chapter. Miracles do happen.

So yeah, Tony remembered the birthdays afterwards.

Soon, Tony would be turning 47 and every nerve in his body shook with apprehension to the thought that the burner phone in his pocket would ring with a call or even a message. Tony thought he dreaded the silence treatment; he did, at some point, when there was still time to go back, when the wounds were not fully healed and if Steve had reached out, the wounds would have healed, they would, but differently. Now, they were healed, his skin was scarred, slowly fading away, but underneath it, a hole was left in the place Steve should have filled.

He just wasn't ready to reopen it all, make it ache again just for Steve to came back. He wasn't ready yet.

Moving on had been good; healing, understanding and swallowing down the rage had been holy.

So why start again, just for one pair of blue eyes, just for that shy smile and the comfortable squeeze of a hand on Tony's shoulder on good days?

After those thoughts, Tony grew indecisive. Maybe. Maybe. But not now, he had two months to go.

One month.

15 days.

Happy birthday!

Tony sat in his workshop, forbidden of coming upstairs by FRIDAY or Rhodey would kick him in the stomach with the prosthetics and Tony was pretty sure he did not want that. So he sat still, like the good little boy he was, sometimes, and played catch with Dumm-e, making the bot whirr like a happy child getting attention from his dad.

Tony was laughing, those missed giggles echoing through the metallic wired filled room till it wasn't the only sound loud and louder.

The burner phone was ringing, vibrating in Tony's pocket, suddenly hot and burning as Tony pulled it out and looked at the ID caller.

**_Winghead_ **

**_Winghead_ **

**_Winghead_ **

**_Winghe-_ **

Tony pressed answer and put the phone against his head. His arms moved like an automatic machine running on gasoline, but inside, static was loud, static was blinding. Forget those who ever said Tony was more than a machine. Steve pulled the plug on humanity long ago. Oil and wires was what was left.

Silence was heard on the other side of the line.

A beat.

Another beat.

And then...

"Oh god, you answered. I can't... Oh... I... This... Uh... Happy birthday, Tony. That's... I want to wish you a happy birthday."

Just like everything turned off, Steve's voice made it all come to life again, and there was a banging in Tony's heart. Someone wanted to come out of inside him, screaming for Steve, screaming for someone that Tony thought was gone.

Then the line went dead, and that someone was burning in flames, in pain, as the phone was sent flying into the wall on the other side of the room.

"Fuck!"

And just like that, moving on was scratched clean and Tony was back at the start. Funny how things worked for him when it came to Steve. Actually, it wasn't funny at all, but what could Tony do but laugh bitterly?

Goddamn burner phone.

"Boss, could you come upstairs, now?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Tony got up, trying to run away to the pieces of plastic now scattered on the floor, trying not to think that he was back at the start and with nothing to reach Steve anymore.

Goddamn panic attacks.

Upstairs, though, Tony did manage to forget the mess inside his ribcage with the sight of a table full of gifts, Rhodey, Vision and T'challa, as well.

"Well, happy birthday to me."

T'challa smiled and extended a hand to Tony, who took it immediately only to be pulled into a hug, _a hug_ , and said to his ear:

"Happy birthday, Tony."

Tony fell back from the hug, something else falling in place inside him that had not been there in the first start. He couldn't name it, but it was bittersweet.

"Uh, thank you... I... I don't know what to say, really..." Tony laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head.

"I'd say open these gifts. All of them come from Wakanda and one maybe from somewhere else."

"Wakanda?"

"Don't ask questions, Tones. Sit your nice ass down and open them up."

Tony smiled at Rhodey and sat down like he demanded, Rhodey pushing him a metallic box, quite big, a word engraved into the metal in the dialect he came to know being from Wakanda. _Vibranium_.

Tony looked at T’challa, an eyebrow arched in a silent, very confusing, question: What?

"Working by your side has been a great pleasure, Tony. We’ve worked to make the world slightly better with the redesign of the Accords, and in the meantime, I believe I have come to witness who you are as a person and I believe I have made a friend for life, one I can count on… especially with this."

To say that Tony was baffled and voiceless was underrated, as he looked between T’challa and the box. When he opened the box and saw the strongest metal on earth in its primary state, not in a round shield of red, white and blue, Tony breathed out, not knowing he was holding on to it in the first place.

"I… I don’t know how to thank you. This is… This is bigger than anything else."

"Thank me by using it to protect this very fragile planet. We need you."

Tony smiled an unsure smile because what was happening right then, was not something that had happened before. Ever.

_We need you._

Oh boy.

Tony swallowed whatever wanted to come out of him and pulled a black box, no bow, no nothing. Tony arched his eyebrow and opened it, putting aside the top and staring at a dagger, gold and red ebbed into it, Russian carved into its handler:

Герой.

Tony's fingers hovered over the letters, "hero" repeating itself in his head, with the image of Natasha smiling at him with a smirk of someone that knows too much. If she was there, she would have known too much and stay silent, murmuring in Russian, cursing Tony for not listening to her, even though she never said a word.

He put down the dagger, his hands shaking.

The next gift was an envelope. His name was on the front, _Stark_ , and Tony knew it was Sam's. The letter inside was short and casual like Tony's had been _._

_Thank you for the phone; for the chance at healing. I'm sorry, though, it turned out this way between us._

_Sam Wilson_

_P.S.: Have you been taking care of Redwing?_

Tony laughed, because at the moment he couldn't afford to cry and stain the paper, but relief, relief was washing over his skin, to the thought that one less person was feeling guilty of something it wasn't entirely their fault. It had been a spiral of bad moves that got them all sucked in.

Tony put the letter back in the envelope, to make sure it stayed perfect as it came to him and looked at Rhodey that smiled fondly at him.

"I'm really happy you and him found a way to overcome what happened."

"It was all thanks to you, Tones."

Rhodey squeezed Tony's shoulder, a ghost of someone from the past doing the same, and Tony pretend the wound he tried to heal was not growing bigger, as it opened and bled all over his insides.

"Well, next present!"

Another envelope slid over the table, doddles drawn all over it, and...

" _From your favourite birdboy. Don't fool yourself thinking Wilson is better than me_."

Strings were tugged, more pieces falling into place inside Tony, ones that he couldn't really ignore anymore, but he tried. Just for now. Instead, he tried to picture what Barton could have send him on his birthday, and Tony knew that it could just be a rock with a face drawn onto to it for all that it mattered. That thought, though, didn’t sound so bad. Tony would take anything they gave him, any piece of home he could grab onto, he wouldn’t let go of.

They were still home, no matter what.

But what fell out of the envelope was not something random, no. Pictures fell, so many of them, all of them of the team. Sam and Steve training. Their new bland mugs, but with the same fillings as ever. The team asleep after watching a movie. Steve giving Sam a piggyback ride. A selfie from the team. _Memories._ They weren’t Tony’s. They didn’t belong to him. But Clint wanted him to live them as well.

Tony stared at them for long minutes. Tony stared at Steve even longer. Tony had realized a while back that he could not recall Steve’s face anymore. Now looking at him relaxed, at peace and somewhat happy made Tony’s heart skip a beat, like it hadn’t happened in a long time.

_(Like when his heart skipped a beat when they are almost something more than just Tony and Steve, but Tony **and** Steve.)_

Tears were threatening to come out but they stayed put, on the brink of the fall, when T’challa handed him a new envelope.

Tony ran his hands over the paper, turned it around and saw his name written on it like the first letter had, a year ago. _Tony_.  

With the same anxiousness he carried back then, Tony opened it and took out whatever it was inside. Paper. Lots of paper. All of it full of drawings. Every little characteristic Tony could have forgotten over the past year of his friends, his family. Whether it was Sam in his suit or Clint napping on the couch, curled into a ball, it wasn’t as much of a memory like Clint’s pics had been. It was more. Like Tony was observing them in those split seconds. 

Then. Then.

Then it was looking through Steve’s eyes, running through his memories as Tony was looking at himself, a memory of himself in the workshop, with his curls out in the wild and oil everywhere on Tony’s skin.

Then. Then.

Then there wasn’t holding back the tears that were running free as Tony didn’t tear his eyes away from it all.

"They miss you, Tony. Despite everything, they miss you terribly."

Tony laughed, choking on his tears and looked at T’challa.

"Yeah… I miss them too."

What had started to fall, piece by piece, into Tony was the knowledge that Tony wasn’t the only one that cared. They cared. They all cared.

Tony would gladly start all over again for them. For Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam And Rhodey are bros and will be bros and life is great.


	3. Mutual

Since T’challa left the palace, Steve was a wreck. He was a wreck every time T’challa went to meet Tony, just because it was Tony and T’challa would see him and talk to him and know about him. All Steve wanted most of the time was to know how Tony was. To know that he was okay and alright made Steve sleep better in an unfamiliar bed, that despite being a year, it still felt odd against his skin and muscles.

Now, now.

Now Steve was a wreck because it had been Tony’s birthday and T’challa had gone with gifts from all of them. A part of Steve told him that Tony would appreciate them, he would even smile and giggle at some of them (Tony’s giggles. _God_ …). Then there was that other part of Steve, the part connected to reality and not just fond memories of a lifetime ago, that told Steve that Tony would accept every gift he received, except Steve’s.

There had been too much silent between the two of them, despite each other reaching out in failed times before. That silence had consequences.

Tony hanged up on Steve the morning of his birthday.

Steve had been inconsolable and it just helped him wreck himself even more in the time that the King was gone. Steve was going crazy. Sitting at the couch, bouncing his leg up and down only to get up, walk a little, go to the kitchen, open the fridge, look at the insides and feel the cold for minutes on end, just to close it and sit back down. A routine formed on that. The others were driven crazy because of it, Steve didn’t care. If Bucky had been there, awake and okay by his side, he would have punched him and told him “ _Get yourself together, man. Do you think Stark would like to see you like that?”_ Uh, yes, he would have, Tony would have mocked him with that little smirk of his, if he could still have that little smirk to Steve anymore, and Steve would have blushed and died a little.

That man had powers Steve couldn’t resist. Sometimes. Not the last time they were together. _Damn._

Steve got up from the couch, and Natasha (yes, she was here and Steve had been mad because she should have been with Tony, _it was his birthday, Nat!_ but she had looked at him as if he was a fool. Steve didn’t try anymore) got up as well and stood in front of him like a hard rock.

"Thinking of doing something productive, Steve? Or are you just gonna walk around miserably so I can punch you in the stomach?"

Steve hardened, wanting to yell at her for being like that when all he thought of was Tony and Tony and Ton-

The front door of their apartment in the palace opened and T’challa walked in. Steve basically went through Natasha to stand like an anxious little boy near T’challa. He was back. 2 days gone and he was finally back.

"Your Majes-"

"You will have to wait your turn to speak, Captain Rogers. I think you will like to wait your turn after I give what I have to give."

Steve stopped and composed himself. The only times he acted like this, like he couldn’t breathe properly and his skin was on fire from the inside, was when Bucky was gone and suddenly he was back and when… when Tony was gone and he was still gone.

That last one wouldn’t change. Steve had to get used to it. In fact, it wasn’t Tony that was gone. Steve had been the one to disappear. That one was on him. Like many other things that had happened in the last year.

"Of course, your majesty."

T’challa smiled and Steve had yet to figure out what that smile was all about. It started months ago, one day from another Steve noticed that there were no more hard lines in T’challa’s face when he talked to him, instead he looked at Steve in silent, listening, looking for something. It seemed he had found it, whatever it was, and now the King smiled at Steve as if he knew something. Steve didn’t know it though.

Steve stepped aside, Natasha came to meet T’challa in soft footsteps, Sam emerged from the medical wing, where he spent his free time when Steve wasn’t there and Clint fell from the vents, as though it was nothing, it would have been nothing, if in T’challa’s place would be Tony calling them out for dinner and it was just another Friday night at home. It wasn’t. And now T’challa was talking.

"I know you are all eager to know how Tony reacted to my visit and the gifts you gave them."

"I think eager is a little understatement. I’ve been watching Cap from up there all day long. I’ve never seen him so nervous." Clint said from on top of the kitchen counter, legs crossed and a little smile hanging on his lips.

Steve looked at him impatiently, like an older brother looked at his little brother when he exaggerated. Even if Clint wasn’t exactly exaggerating. Either way, there was no motive for him to spill it all out to T’challa.

"I can bet…" There it was that smile again! And Steve was crossing his arms, switching his weight from one leg to another. "But, I have something better for you than my tale of his reactions."

Steve’s blue eyes glued themselves to the door, the sudden thought that maybe Tony was here, on the other side of the door, about to burst in and yell surprise, with his sunglasses on and his classy/sporty clothes. The door remained closed. Steve kept still, something inside him telling him to wait and maybe, maybe he could just appear and-

"I’m sorry, captain. It is not that. Tony is not ready for that. I’m afraid he won’t be for a while."

He looked at T’challa and noticed how everyone was looking at him like he was a wounded puppy. He bet even Bucky in his sleep would be thinking the same. Maybe he was. Everyone stayed put though. Didn’t move, so Steve did the same and relaxed as much as he could.

"Then what have you for us that could be better than telling us if Tony rejected everything or…?"

T’challa snapped his fingers, like there was magic in them, and the front door opened for servants to walk in with boxes and bow down before disappearing for good. Steve still looked at the door. No one else was coming in.

"Tony told me to give you these. Open them and you will understand what he feels. He was loss at words when I left so this was the solution. In my opinion, it works even better than anything else. But that is just my opinion."

"Loss at words? I never heard the team ever say that Tony Stark could get speechless." Sam smiled at Steve and went to the box with his name on it.

The metallic box looked like any other box Tony gave the team back then when he decided to show up with some piece of gear suddenly upgraded. Now it made Steve wonder if that was it? Tony showing he cared like he used to do: by making them safer out in the streets when fighting bad guys. But now they were doing everything but fighting bad guys so Steve was confused.

When Sam opened the box, though, Steve understood and smiled while Sam picked up Redwing and smiled like a five year old picking a puppy on Christmas morning. It seemed like the whole world lit up for Sam.

"I can’t believe this! He gave me Redwing! Oh man…" Sam was laughing, thanking T’challa for bringing it back from Tony and ran away, back to the medical wing where Bucky would be, still very much asleep. But that never stopped Sam from sitting down next to the cryo pod and talk endlessly.

Steve knew Sam and Bucky had not gotten along when they first met after the whole Washington incident. They bickered and punched each other endlessly. Now Steve understood that it was something completely different, and Steve wished Bucky could somehow listen to everything happening around him as he slept, so that once he woke up he could talk to Sam for the first time, face to face and no bickering right in the middle. Steve just wanted his two best friends happy.

Natasha snorted and looked at Steve with a knowing smirk.

"I think Sam and Bucky will become great  _friends_ , Steve."

"Yeah, I think so too. I hope it happens."

Natasha nodded her head without her smile, knowing that one thing it is to know how two people feel, another thing is for them to do something about it. Even Steve knew that too well. A weight settled on his heart, a little voice whispering a four letter name. Steve knew, okay? He knew.

"Ms. Romanoff."  T’challa pointed to a very beautiful box. A red velvet box with a black ribbon. Natasha’s face changed entirely and as she approached the box, her hands shook. Steve never saw her like that and knew immediately, something had happened between her and Tony.

Natasha unmade the ribbon, letting it fall on the table and opened the box to see her favourite knives and guns she left back at home when she didn’t think she wouldn’t return at the end of the day. Underneath it all was a note.

Воин.

Steve saw a small smile form in the corners of her mouth and a single tear roll down her perfect round cheek. Natasha pulled her hair out of her face and without hiding her red eyes, whispered:

"If you’ll excuse me…"

Everyone nodded and Natasha walked back to the couch, where it her legs crossed, she took every weapon out of her box and started cleaning them, slowly and thoroughly. Steve was looking at a memory of back then, when in the early mornings he found Natasha happily sitting on the couch taking care of her guns and knives with a small smile in her face. A routine he misunderstood all these years.

Steve finally knew it meant peace. Natasha finally found it again.

Steve looked at Clint that still sitting on the counter top, observed Natasha with a little smile of someone that found something worth all of the pain of the last months. Steve understood. Clint was seeing the person he loved most found some kind of solace and that alone was enough for him. Steve felt the same with Bucky, when he decided to go back into the ice, not only for the sake of the world, but for his own sake. It was somewhat peace, till Bucky got to know what peace really meant. Love worked like that, the other’s happiness was their happiness. And that was reason enough why Steve was half torn half complete. Tony was missing that happiness.

In some way, they all were. And Tony was trying to restore that happiness as much as he could.

Steve’s heart leaped into his throat the thought.

"Well, I guess it’s my turn!" Clint jumped from the countertop and rubbed his hands together as if he was about to play a game just to win.

Everything about him yelled excitement and it was adorable, in Steve’s opinion, how Clint was so eager to have just a little bit of connection with Tony. They bickered a lot back at home, but somehow they always ended up doing things together and misbehaving (because that’s what it was) together. It was love.

Clint opened his box, that very much like his birthday one (if Steve remembered correctly), was all purple with a purple bow. Outside a card stood out with glitter on it. Clint had an enormous grin on his face as he read it.

_To my favourite birdboy._

_T.S._

"I knew it! I am officially the favourite one. Wilson will burn!"

And in a hurricane type speed Clint opened the box to find his favourite mug, one with a unicorn and a rainbow above him, and underneath it his favourite blanket, the one that Steve remembered to always see Clint wrapped in, whether in the mornings whether late at night when they all settled in to watch a movie.

Clint stood looking at his prized possessions, till he picked them up, the blanket around his shoulders and the mug carefully placed in his hands, and turned his back on Steve and T’challa.

"I’m going to make some hot chocolate."

If Steve didn’t knew better, he’d say Clint was all choked up. He tried not to chuckle at the sight of Clint like he was in the compound’s kitchen making his breakfast early in the morning (too early for Clint Barton) and instead he focused on T’challa.

He was already looking at Steve, deep in thought. Steve was afraid. He was next. _If_ he was next. Maybe there was nothing for him. Maybe Tony wanted to prologue the silence and leave Steve behi-

"Captain, I believe it is your turn." From inside T’challa jacket, he took an envelope and extended it to Steve.

Steve looked at the envelope. Suddenly, he didn’t want to hold it and read whatever it was inside. He was scared shitless. _Language, Cap!_ echoed inside his head in Tony’s voice and that made him retreat even further away. Steve wanted to live with the memories he had shared with Tony and the team as they used to be without the knowledge that they could never go back because he had screwed up enough to for Tony to never take him back again.

"Captain, I think you will like to open this letter. You won’t regret it, I promise."

Since when did T’challa start to enthuse Steve when it came to Tony? But then, T’challa was with Tony very often, he knew about Tony’s charms and his genius mind. It was almost impossible not to fall for that.

And with that Steve took the letter and opened it with shaking hands.

_“I need you._

_I’m not ready yet._

_But I’m getting there._

_Tony”_

A picture fell from the envelope and Steve was staring at the sight of a happy family from months ago. A thumb pressed into the hard piece of paper, over every smile that was too big, too bright. They looked happier than they ever did. Did Steve always look this happy next to them?

"He misses you, as well. He said so himself. It’s not over, Captain."

Steve nodded, choked on his tears of happiness and relief and smiled at the King.

"Thank you."

Soft footsteps came beside Steve and Clint and Natasha were staring at the picture, their hands grasping onto his shoulder, reassuringly.

They were going to be okay, someday.

It didn’t have to hurt anymore. Neither of them would have to hurt anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... 
> 
> T'challa is an angel, God bless him, I love that boy.  
> Yes, I (not so) low key ship Sam/Bucky, cause those boys rule and they always make my day better so I just...I had to put them here.  
> Nat/Clint is my weakness since the first Avengers and for me they will always be meant to be. (I also ship BuckyNat obviously, but yeah...)
> 
> Воин means warrior. 
> 
> Oh, Bucky's arm isn't mentioned by Steve or anything because I thought Bucky should only have it once he came out of the cryo. Besides, it would ensue Bucky/Tony feels which I am all up for. 
> 
> And I hope you liked it! XOXO
> 
> UPDATE: I may write a sequel to this, since I've had some ideas this week and it's all pretty established in my head. I just don't have the time now to write it with the last tests and oral presentations of High school going on. Hopefully this friday I have a little bit of spare time and I can get started on it!

**Author's Note:**

> There are no mentions of Scott since there is no connection with Tony, I could have written about him and Cassie, but for me he isn't yet a full Avenger and this is about the Avengers. There are also no mentions of Wanda since I don't like her character in the MCU so I won't write about it. 
> 
> Also, Clint's characterization (and arc) is nothing like the MCU's. I wrote him how I imagine him, goofy, cringey, my little baby bird. 
> 
> Another also, the whole prosthetic arm thing, I don't know anything about prosthetics so I just wrote what probably can't happen but it would be freaking awesome in reality. 
> 
> Steve's birthday: 4th of July  
> Nat's birthday: 22nd of November   
> Clint's birthday: 4th of January   
> Bucky's birthday: 10th of March   
> Tony's birthday: 29th of May


End file.
